The Gadget : One of Garmin ’s flagship Nuvis , the 880 responds to commands from your articulation , touch off by a slight outside ascendancy you tie to your steerage steering wheel .
The Price : Garmin says $ 800 , but you’re able to find it online for $ 690 .
The Verdict : It ’s the undecomposed all - around GPS on the market , but there are too many halfway decent Garmin models for less than half the cost .
The 880 is n’t the first GPS with voice command , but it ’s unquestionably the best . The distant button that you strap to your guidance wheel realize set off it easy , and being able to dictate savoir-faire including obscure street names is only part of the fun . When you ’re in POI search , you may name popular localisation ( “ Starbucks ” ) or categories ( it actually understands synonyms like “ Fuel ” and “ Gas ” ) . Most importantly , you may bug the push button and say affair like “ Cancel Route ” or “ Volume Up , ” commands most potential to be issued while aim , insure you stay safe than if you were to try out to do these things with your fingers while keeping your rack on the road . The only trouble with voice bid is that , to function , it need the remote control ( pictured above ) . If somehow you crack off the remote control or drop off it , you will forever lose the ability to talk to your 880 , so be careful .
As you may see in the video , with the exception of its unfitness to empathise “ Cancel ” or “ way out ” while do certain subroutine , it respond extremely well to natural speech :
We ’ve said repeatedly that Garmin is the in effect bet for anyone shopping for GPS , and the 880 demonstrates this to be the caseful . It does n’t imply it ’s perfect , it ’s just by far the least infuriating sailing master on the road today . Garmin often adds features later than others , but this only strengthens its predomination , since those like TomTom and Magellan — not to mention the innovative but sickly Dash — rush revolutionary features without spending time on core interface outcome , and break down because of it .
Some of the 880 ’s perks do not get me delirious : I have yet to meet a Bluetooth speakerphone that does n’t leave in citizenry yelling that they ca n’t hear me , a problem make as much to do with every different phone ’s cheap - o Bluetooth chip , no doubt . I also am very underwhelmed by the MSN Direct service that the 880 offers ( “ complimentary ” for 3 month ) . Its main feature is the traffic reportage but that selective information , even in massive subway system areas , has prove to me to be absolutely useless . The 880 is as dumb as the humble GPS when it comes to awareness , and my hope is that historic dealings tendency will soon be better integrated at the map database level — i.e. with Navteq and Tele Atlas — so as to make routing more sassy even without the need for connectivity or any kind of realtime guesswork .
Some of you may realize that this review is long overdue . One reason is that , when I first got the 880 , it had some bugginess that I ’m glad to say has been fixed with a microcode update . Another reason for the delay is that I require to see how long it would take to stop using the voice commands . lamentably , it did n’t take very long , but in prepping for this inspection , I started using the voice commands more , and realized that it ’s an asset I should n’t so readily overlook . Just do n’t lose the remote , or you lose the feature . [ Product Page ]
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